A New York hospital system has whiffed on its attempt to bury a whistleblower’s claims that it funneled dollars away from its nursing home to pay other parts of the organization.

Catholic Health System of Long Island is accused of taking government payments meant for its own St. Catherine of Siena Nursing & Rehab Care Center, and utilizing them for non-Medicare or Medicaid uses, Bloomberg Law reports.

Michael Quartararo, a former administrator at the Smithtown, NY, facility, where he worked for 38 years, claims that the hospital system charged the nursing home for costs it never incurred. Those included a non-existent inhalation therapy department, along with a $1.7 million mitigation payment from the state’s department of health, which was meant to ease the pain from changes in Medicaid reimbursement rates, Bloomberg said.

Judge Margo Brodie of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York refused to grant the six-hospital, three-SNF system’s motion to dismiss the charges, noting that CHSLI’s previous successful arguments against the whistleblower might not be successful again.

“CHSLI has received and is currently reviewing Judge Brodie’s most recent decision, and considering its options with respect to that decision,” a spokeswoman for the hospital system told McKnight’s in an email Tuesday.  “Our practice is not to comment on matters that are in litigation.”